Between the Facts

“Funny what paying attention to something outside of yourself can do for your self image.”

~Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier

“Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn’t have to experience it.”

~Max Frisch

“Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately, it doesn’t seem to be working.”

~Unknown

“The problem with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you’re hungry again.”

~George Miller

“You can stare right at something and not see what lies beneath the surface.”

~Second Glance by Jodi Picoult

“The word ‘experienced’ often refers to someone who’s gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than you have.”

~Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

“The rigid person is a disciple of death;
The soft, supple, and delicate are lovers of life.”

~The Tao Te Ching

“Sometimes an idea can drive an action as powerfully as an emotion.”

~Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

“The annoying thing about plans is how rare it is for everything to go just right…. We must plan. But we must be able to let go of the plan, too.”

~Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

“We think we believe what we know, but we only truly believe what we feel.”

~Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

“Play puts a person in touch with his environment, while laughter makes the feeling of being threatened manageable.”

~Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

“A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.”

~Unknown

“The first rule is: Face reality. Good survivors aren’t immune to fear. They know what’s happening, and it does ’scare the living shit’ out of them. It’s all a question of what you do next.”

~Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

“Shit does just happen sometimes, as the bumper sticker says. There are things you can can’t control, so you’d better know how you’re going to react to them…. But there are also the things you can control, and you’d better be controlling them all the time.”

~Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

“It’s easy to imagine that wilderness survival would involve equipment, training, and experience. It turns out that, at the moment of truth, those might be good things to have but they aren’t decisive. Those of us who go into the wilderness or seek our thrills in contact with the forces of nature soon learn, in fact, that experience, training, and modern equipment can betray you. The maddening thing for someone with a Western scientific turn of mind is that it’s not what’s in your pack that separates the quick from the dead. It’s not even what’s in your mind. Corny as it sounds, it’s what’s in your heart.”

~Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

“I will reach upward. I will attempt to do better. I will not be a burden upon those who have helped me too much already. I will always be grateful for what pleasures I have enjoyed, what joys I have yet to experience. I will take opportunities as they come, but at the same time, I will not trust so easily. I will look at who is at the door before opening it. I will try to be fierce. I will argue when necessary. I will be willing to fight.”

~What is the What by Dave Eggers

“The truth is that I do not like ‘hanging in there.’ I was born, I believe, to do more.”

~What is the What by Dave Eggers

“Don’t be a spectator, don’t let life pass you by.”

~Lou Holtz

“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

~William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

“No one has ever drowned in sweat.”

~Lou Holtz